The Earth Page 36

  From that day on, a life of fun and games began. The old man was given the girl's bedroom, one of the compartments in the former cellar, divided into two by a wooden partition; and she had obligingly withdrawn into an excavation at the end, a sort of rear section where there were said to be vast underground rooms blocked off by falling rocks. The worst thing was that this foxhole of a castle was becoming buried more and more every year by stones brought down by the heavy winter rains as they ran off the steep slope; indeed the hovel, with its old foundations and patched up with dry stones, would have been carried away but for the thick roots of the ancient lime-trees growing above. But with the arrival of spring it became a delightfully cool retreat, a grotto hidden under bramble and hawthorn bushes. The dog-rose covering the window was dotted with pink flowers and even the door had its curtain of wild honeysuckle, which you pushed aside in order to go in.

  Of course La Trouille did not have kidney beans and veal and onions to cook every day. That happened only when the old man had coughed up a five-franc piece and Jesus Christ, while not over-discreet, was careful not to push him too far; he preferred to wheedle money out of him by playing on his feelings and his greed. They would spend the first few days of every month feasting, once the old man had collected the sixteen francs of his pension from the Delhommes; and they would really let themselves go every quarter when the lawyer gave Fouan his allowance of thirty-seven francs fifty centimes. At first Fouan would hand over his five-franc pieces only as the money ran out, unable to break with his inveterate avarice; then gradually he fell into the hands of his rascally son, amused and bemused by his extraordinary gift for story-telling, sometimes even reduced to tears, so that he would hand over two or three francs at a time. He began to fall into glutonous habits, saying to himself that it was better to squander the lot with good grace since it would all be squandered sooner or later anyway. In any case, it must be said in Jesus Christ's favour that if he was robbing the old man, at least he gave him his fair share and kept him amused. At first, touched by all his good cheer, he closed his eyes to the thought of the nest-egg and made no attempt to enquire about it. His father was free to enjoy himself as he liked and as long as he was paying for these celebrations he could not reasonably be asked to do anything more. And it was only during the second half of each month, when the old man's pockets were empty, that he would let his mind wander onto the subject of the money he had once glimpsed before it had been hidden away somewhere. But there was not a farthing to be squeezed out of him! Jesus Christ would grumble at his daughter when she served a dish of mashed potatoes without butter and he would draw in his belt and think how stupid it was, really, to go short and hide your money away. One day that nest-egg would have to be brought to light and demolished!

  All the same, even on these miserable evenings when the great hulking rogue would sit stretching himself in annoyance, he would not be too down-hearted and would relieve himself with some windy comment, cheering everybody up with a splendid heavy barrage as though he had had a decent meal.

  ‘And that's for the turnips, La Trouille, and some butter, damn it all!’

  Fouan was not bored even when things became difficult towards the end of the month, because it was then that the father and daughter went out in search of something to put in the pot. The first time La Trouille came back with a hen which she had hooked from over a wall, he had been cross. On a second occasion, he had had to laugh heartily too, one morning when she had hidden up a tree dangling a hook baited with meat in the middle of a flock of ducks; one of them had suddenly rushed at it and swallowed it whole, hook, line and meat; and then with a sharp tug it had disappeared into the air, stifled without a cry. It was a trifle dishonest, of course, but when animals are living in the open, surely they ought to belong to anyone who can catch them; as long as you don't steal money, well, really, you can hardly be called a thief. After this incident, he began to take an interest in the little scamp's marauding expeditions, which were almost unbelievable; a sack of potatoes whose owner had helped her carry himself; grazing cows milked into a bottle; even the washerwomen's washing, which she sank in the Aigre by means of stones and came back at night to dive in and fetch out. She was to be seen on every highway and byway, for her geese provided her with a permanent excuse for roaming the countryside on the look-out for some opportunity, spending hours at times beside a ditch with the sleepy air of a goosegirl letting her flock forage around; she even used her geese as dogs to warn her, for the gander would hiss as soon as some intruder threatened to catch her unawares. She was now eighteen years old and she had hardly grown at all since she was twelve, still as lithe and slim as a branch of young poplar and goatlike with her green slits of eyes and her wide mouth, twisted to the left. Her little childish breasts, under her father's old smocks, had become harder rather than larger. A real tomboy, who only liked her animals and thought nothing about men. This did not prevent her, after a friendly tussle with some young village boy, from ending up on her back; this was something quite natural, that was the point of it and it wasn't important anyway. Fortunately, she only had dealings with young scallywags of her own age, otherwise it would have been disgusting; but the staid, older men of the village left her alone, finding her not plump enough for their taste. In fact, as her grandfather used to say with amused admiration, apart from the fact that she was a thief and not quite as decent-living as she might have been, she really was an amusing girl and not as black as she was painted.

  But above all Fouan enjoyed following Jesus Christ as he prowled round the fields. Every peasant has a poacher hidden inside him and he was interested in the snares and the ground lines, all sorts of primitive tricks, the continual war of wits waged against the gamekeeper and the gendarmes. As soon as the braided caps and brown crossbelts appeared from the road, moving along above the wheat, father and son seemed to be stretched out on a bank asleep; then suddenly the son would crawl along the ditch on all fours and check the traps while his father, with the innocent air of a harmless old man, kept an eye on the crossbelts and caps receding into the distance. There were superb trout to be found in the Aigre that you could sell for two francs or more to a fishmonger in Châteaudun; the trouble was that you had to watch them for hours because they were very wily. The two often went as far as the Loir as well, in whose muddy bottom there were lovely eels to be found. When the fish were not biting, Jesus Christ had hit on a more convenient method of fishing in the fish-cages of the townsfolk who lived beside the river. But this was little more than a pastime, because his real passion was hunting. His depredations extended a dozen miles or more around; and evervthing was fair game, quail as well as partridge and starlings as well as larks. He rarely used a gun, which can be heard a long way off. Not one single clutch of partridge nesting in the clover or lucerne would escape his notice, so that he knew the exact time and place when the young birds could be caught by hand, still drowsy and wet with dew. He had specially prepared snares for larks and quail and he would cast stones into the thick clouds of starlings that seem to come in with the autumn winds. For the last twenty years he had been exterminating the game of the whole region so that there was not a rabbit left in the coverts on the slopes of the Aigre, to the great fury of the local hunters. Only the hares managed to evade his tender mercies; there were not many of them and they could make their escape over the plain where it was dangerous to pursue them. He dreamt longingly of the few hares still to be found at La Borderie and he would risk gaol in order to have a shot at one of them, now and again. When he saw his son taking his gun, Fouan stayed at home: it was too stupid, he'd end up being pinched, as sure as fate.

  And of course one day this did happen. It must be said that farmer Hourdequin, exasperated at the destruction of the game on his estate, had given Bécu the strictest orders, so, irritated at never managing to lay hands on anyone, the gamekeeper had taken to sleeping in a hayrick, to keep a look-out. And one morning at daybreak he was awakened with a start by a shot, the flash of which
passed under his very nose. It was Jesus Christ, lying in wait behind a heap of straw, who had just killed a hare, at almost point-blank range.

  ‘Ah, it's you, blast you!’ cried the gamekeeper, seizing the gun which Jesus Christ had leant against the rick while he was picking up the hare. ‘I might have known it was you, you scum!’

  When drinking, they were boon companions; but out in the fields they were at daggers drawn, with Bécu always on the point of catching Jesus Christ, who was equally determined to punch the former's nose.

  ‘Yes, it's me, sod you! Give me back my gun.’

  Bécu was already in two minds about his capture. As a rule, when he saw Jesus Christ going to the left, he was glad to turn off right. What's the point of stirring up trouble between friends? But this time his duty was plain and he could not possibly turn a blind eye. And anyway, when someone's been caught red-handed he can at least be polite.

  ‘Your gun, you dirty dog! I'm going to hang onto it and deposit it at the town-hall. And don't make a move or try and be clever or else I'll blow your guts out with the other barrel!’

  Weaponless, Jesus Christ hesitated to attack him, despite his anger. Then, when he saw him making for the village, he started following him, still carrying his hare dangling from his hand. They both walked for a quarter of an hour without exchanging a word, looking daggers at each other. Any minute hostilities seemed inevitable, yet both were becoming increasingly worried. What a stupid bloody encounter!

  As they were coming up behind the church, a stone's throw from the Castle, the poacher made one final attempt.

  ‘Come on, old man, don't be stupid, come and have a drink at home with me.’

  ‘No, I must make my report,’ the gamekeeper replied stiffly.

  And he refused to budge, like an old soldier sticking strictly to his orders. However, he did stop and eventually, as the other man caught hold of his arm to persuade him to come along with him, he said:

  ‘All right then, if you've got pen and ink. It doesn't really matter where we do it as long as I make my report.’

  When Bécu arrived at the Castle the sun was rising and old Fouan, already smoking his pipe on the doorstep, realized what had happened and was worried, the more so as the situation was still very serious. They unearthed the ink and a rusty old pen and the gamekeeper embarked on his terrible struggle to find the right words, sprawling with his elbows on the table. But at the same time, at a word from her father, La Trouille fetched three glasses and a litre of wine; and by the time he had written five lines, the exhausted Bécu, having lost his way in the details of his account of the incident, was ready to take a long gulp. So, little by little, the situation became less tense. A second litre made its appearance, followed by a third. Two hours later the three men, with their heads together, were fiercely engaged in friendly conversation: they were very drunk and had completely forgotten the morning's affair.

  ‘You old cuckold!’ Jesus Christ was yelling. ‘You know I go to bed with your old woman.’

  It was true. Ever since the village feast, he had been tumbling Bécu's wife unceremoniously in any old corner, using such endearing expressions as ‘old bag’. But Bécu was aggressive when drunk, and lost his temper. He might accept the situation when sober, but in his cups he took offence. He flourished an empty bottle and screamed:

  ‘You bollocking dirty shit!’

  The bottle smashed against the wall, missing Jesus Christ who was sitting there slobbering, with a bleary maudlin look on his face. To appease the outraged husband, it was decided that they would all stay and eat the hare straight away together. Whenever La Trouille cooked a jugged hare, the delicious smell reached as far as the other end of the village. It was a wonderful celebration and lasted the whole day. They were still sitting sucking away at the bones when night fell, so they lighted two tallow candles and continued. Fouan produced three franc pieces and sent the girl to buy a litre of brandy. They were still sipping it when all the village was in bed and asleep. Jesus Christ, who kept groping for a light, caught hold of the report the gamekeeper had started to write, now covered in wine and gravy stains.

  ‘Oh, yes, we've got to finish it off,’ he mumbled, with a drunken belly laugh.

  He was looking at it and wondering what joke he could play, something to express his whole contempt for the written word and the law. Suddenly he raised his thigh, slipped the paper underneath and let off a meaty one on it, the sort he described as having a mortar at the end of it.

  ‘And now it's signed!’

  Everyone burst into laughter, including Bécu. What fun they had that night at the Castle!

  At about this time, Jesus Christ made a friend. One evening, when he had gone to earth in a ditch to let the gendarmes pass, he found himself sharing the place with a fellow who was also not keen on being seen. They started talking. He was called Leroi, a good sort who went by the name of Canon; a journeyman carpenter, he had left Paris a couple of years ago as a result of some trouble with the police and he preferred living in the country, wandering from village to village, working a week here and a week there, offering his services to one farm and then another, when the farmer did not want him. Now work was difficult to find and he was on the road, begging, living on stolen fruit and vegetables and glad to have leave to sleep in a haystack. If the truth be told, he was hardly the sort of man to inspire much confidence, being ragged, filthy and very ugly; wasted by vice and poverty and with such a pale, thin face and sparse beard that women locked their doors at the mere sight of him. What was worse, he talked in an outrageous manner of chopping off the heads of the rich and being able to have the time of his life one fine day with other people's wine and wives; threats which he uttered in a sombre voice, waving his fists as he expressed the revolutionary ideas which he had picked up in the poorer suburbs of Paris; a never-ending flow of inflammatory social demands which filled the country folk with bewilderment and awe. For the last two years he had turned up at farms at dusk, asking for a corner to sleep in in the straw. He would sit down by the fire and make their blood curdle with his terrifying talk; then he would disappear the following day and reappear a week later at the same dismal hour of evening and utter the same prophecies of death and destruction. And so the farmers would now no longer take him in because of the terror and anger aroused by the sinister visions of this footloose vagrant. Jesus Christ and Canon hit it off together straightaway.

  ‘God, how stupid I was,’ the former exclaimed, ‘not to have cleaned out the lot of them in Cloyes in 1848! Come along, old man, let's crack a bottle.’

  He took him back to the Castle and put him up for the night, full of deference for all his talk and thinking how superior he was to know so much, with his ideas on how to reform society in one fell swoop. Two days later, Canon left; then, after a week, he was back again but left at dawn. And from then on he dropped in at the Castle every so often, eating and snoring as if the place belonged to him, and swearing each time he came that the bourgeois would be liquidated before three months were up. One night when her father was out on the prowl, he tried to tumble his host's daughter but, blushing with shame, La Trouille indignantly scratched and bit him so hard that he had to let go. ‘What did he take her for, the dirty old man?’ He called her a silly little girl.

  Fouan was not very fond of Canon either. He accused him of being a loafer and wanting things that would land him up on the scaffold. When that scoundrel was there, the old man was so unhappy that he preferred to smoke his pipe outside. In any case, he was once more running into difficulties and no longer enjoying his guzzling sessions with his son so much, ever since a serious point of disagreement had arisen between them. Up till now, Jesus Christ had been selling off his share of the land, bit by bit, only to his brother Buteau or his brother-in-law Delhomme, and each time Fouan, whose signature was required, had given it without question, since the land was staying in the family. But now the question of the last field had arisen. The poacher had used it as security to borrow money and
the man who had lent it was talking of having it put up to auction because he hadn't seen a single penny of the interest that had been agreed. When consulted, Monsieur Baillehache had recommended Jesus Christ to sell it himself as quickly as possible, unless he wanted to run into heavy expense. Unfortunately, neither Buteau nor Delhomme wanted to buy it as they were furious at the old man's letting himself be swindled by his rascally elder son and were determined to have nothing to do with any matter as long as Fouan continued to live there. And so the field was going to be sold by legal authority and the papers were all being drawn up. It was the first piece of land ever to be leaving the family and the old man spent sleepless nights as a result. Land that his father and grandfather had coveted so fiercely and acquired by dint of such hardship! Land that had been kept and guarded as jealously as if it had been a wife. Fancy seeing legal proceedings eat into it, fancy seeing it lose its value, and fall into the possession of someone else, a neighbour, for half its real value! He trembled with fury and was so heartbroken that he sobbed like a child! Oh, what a swine Jesus Christ was.

  Terrible scenes took place between father and son. The latter would refuse to reply and let the tragic old man stand there, screaming his reproaches and wailing with grief, until he was exhausted.

  ‘Yes, you're a murderer, it's like taking a knife and cutting a piece of flesh out of my body. Such a good field, you couldn't find a better! Anything will grow in it, you only need to breathe on it! You cowardly good-for-nothing, not raising a finger to stop someone else having it! Yes, for Christ's sake, someone else! That's what I can't stand. Haven't you got any guts at all, you bloody soak? And it's all because you've drunk it all, you dirty idle bastard!’

  Then, when his father was too breathless and tired to go on, his son replied calmly:

  ‘It's so stupid, to torment yourself like that, old man! Punch me on the nose, if you feel it'll relieve you. But you're not being very philosophical, you know. Look, you can't eat earth, can you? If they put a plate of it in front of you, what a face you'd pull, wouldn't you? I used it to borrow money because that's my way of growing five-franc pieces on it. And now they'll sell it, after all, they sold Jesus Christ, didn't they? And if we get a few pennies out of it, we'll blue them on drink, that's real wisdom. Good God, once you're dead you'll get all the land you want.’